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Harare - A planned two-day strike in Zimbabwe failed to start on Wednesday when schools and businesses opened normally and police deployed throughout the capital, a day after a key protest organiser was arrested and charged with inciting violence.
The government addressed one of the main demands of the strike organisers when it announced that it would pay civil servants their June salaries on Wednesday, a day earlier than planned. The labour action was also called to protest police harassment and the reintroduction of a form of local currency.
Police on Tuesday arrested Evan Mawarire, 39, a baptist preacher and organiser of the #ThisFlag movement, and charged him with inciting violence, after a July 6 strike shut down much of the southern African nation.
Police searched Mawarire’s home in Harare. He rose to prominence in April when he draped a Zimbabwean flag over his shoulders and recorded a lament on the state of his nation on YouTube.
President Robert Mugabe’s administration has faced mounting public unrest as a cash shortage has undermined the government’s ability to pay its workers and consumer access to funds to pay their bills.
Since abandoning its own currency in 2009 to end hyperinflation, Zimbabwe has used dollars, as well as rands, euros and pounds. The government spends about 83% of its revenue on wages, according to Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa.
Traffic from most of the capital’s townships was heavy as Zimbabweans headed for work, Kubatana, a human-rights organisation monitoring the strike, said in an e-mailed statement. Banks, which mostly closed during last week’s labour action, opened as usual.
Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Ignatius Chombo warned Zimbabweans late on Tuesday that anyone fomenting violence would face “the full wrath of the law.”
